End of PCSAT-1 Winter operating period.
During the afternoon pass over USA, PCSAT-1 was overloaded over
the west coast and crashed back to W3ADO-1 at 1850z. But one
minute later we had AOS over the Naval Academy ground station
and recovered it to PCSAT-1 and digipeating..
But the number of users was just so high, that there was no way
she would survive the next eclipse. So after 8 minutes of
operations and just prior to LOS, we turned off the digipeater
and set the MYCALL tto NODIGI as a way of letting users know the
digi was off.
This is probably the end of this PCSAT-1 operating period. We
will see if the NODIGI will hold. But eclipses still get worse
and eventually she will be back to resetting on every orbit and
be practially useless except mid-day sunnyside passes for a
lucky packet or two...
The next full receovery period will be the second week in March.
Then none until October.
Bob Bruninga, WB4APR
US Naval Academy Satellite Ground Station